


Healing Kisses

by bronweathanharthad



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Quest, Post-War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 05:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8698291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronweathanharthad/pseuds/bronweathanharthad
Summary: After an emotionally draining day for the both of them, Sam searches for various scars on Frodo's upper body, hoping his kisses will provide Frodo with much-needed comfort.





	

The Sun had only started to set when Sam found Frodo lying atop his bed.

    It had been a rough day for the both of them. Frodo relived too many memories to count. He spent much of the day keeping a fearful watch on something only he could see, and by mid-afternoon he had become completely nonverbal. And Sam’s helplessness caused him to suffer a debilitating panic attack and violent crying. Both were consumed with exhaustion.

    Sam moved closer to see whether Frodo had fallen asleep. Frodo opened his weary, red-rimmed eyes at the sound of Sam’s footsteps. His eyes were filled with remorse. Had he re-found the ability to talk, he would have apologized, but Sam only shook his head.

    Sam asked permission to join him. Frodo nodded, and with poorly concealed effort he inched over.

 

They lay in silence, Sam holding Frodo’s four-fingered hand. Even all these months later, Sam’s heart still skipped a few beats when he found air instead of flesh.

    Having felt tightness in that spot, Sam examined the hand more closely. The stump where the middle finger had once been was encrusted with hardened blood. Frodo had been picking at it again.

    Sam repressed a disapproving sigh. Frodo couldn’t help it. Whenever Sam saw him in this kind of state, he was always unaware of his own actions. All the same, Sam wished that his master would have enough sense to avoid re-opening an exposed wound.

    But, more so than disapproving, he was sorrowful. There was that stump, seldom out of Frodo’s sight, constantly provoking unwarranted stares, a reminder to all of a punishment that the poor hobbit did not deserve.

    As Sam massaged away the tightness, Frodo’s agonized cry rang through his ears, and tears stung his eyes as he thought of all that blood spurting from the wound. It was miraculous indeed that his master had survived such loss. Did Frodo ever consider how amazing it was for him to make it as far as he did, Sam wondered, or had he become too consumed with thoughts of his failure?

    Encouraging words filled Sam’s mind, words that would never leave his lips for fear that his master (nay, his friend) would deny them. He found a section untouched by blood and gave it a gentle kiss.

    Frodo confusedly raised his eyebrows but did not protest. If anything, some tension seemed to dissolve.

 

Sam searched further up his friend’s arm and found a faint line that ran from the wrist nearly to the elbow. What had been the source of that scar? Both endured so much in the final two weeks of their journey that it would have been impossible to recount everything.

    But then an image flashed through Sam’s mind: Frodo lying naked, his shaking right arm in the air to protect his face, a fresh whip-weal still drawing blood.

    Frodo feared to speak of his ordeal in Orc captivity then, and he certainly wouldn’t speak of it now. Sam certainly couldn’t fault him for that, and he supposed he was grateful that he would never learn everything his master endured. Even now, the thought of those curs laying a hand on Frodo was more than enough to boil Sam’s blood.

    If only he hadn’t taken so long to find him…if only those Orcs had arrived just a little bit later…

    With the bitter taste of remorse in his mouth, Sam pressed his lips to the scar, a longer kiss this time, and lowered Frodo’s arm back onto the bed. Frodo’s tension lowered just a little bit more.

 

Other scars hid beneath Frodo’s shirt, and Sam wanted to kiss as many as he could, if only to feel as if he had done something besides letting the old wounds fester. Sam asked if he could unbutton the shirt, promising to re-button later on, and, to his relief, Frodo nodded.

    Almost immediately the remnants of an indentation on the left breast caught Sam’s eye. How on earth could Frodo have acquired such a nasty mark without Sam’s knowledge? What would have penetrated through mithril or Orc armor?

    Mordor did have more than its share of hazards, and they’d both lost their balance quite a few times. But why did Frodo choose to take that silently? He could have suffered something serious, and Sam would have had no way of knowing.

    Or maybe he hadn’t noticed the pain. Maybe he was so preoccupied with his mental war that he lost all awareness to physical ailments. Sam didn’t know which was worse.

    He kissed the mark and moved on. He wouldn’t ask how that scar came about, not today, maybe not ever.

 

There were a couple of small scrapes on Frodo’s left side, more than likely from the cave troll. That was when Sam learned about Bilbo’s gift. If only it could have protected Frodo from the spider’s sting, but that was another matter.

    He gave a light kiss, and Frodo squirmed in a ticklish fit. Alas, no giggle, but better to react in some way, Sam supposed, than to not react at all.

 

Frodo’s neck held a few scars, one from a spider’s sing, the rest from the burden he bore.

    He had long been sensitive to neck touches, never liking them, so Sam opted to kiss his own fingers and give as light a touch as possible.

    Frodo complained of a pain on the back of his neck shortly after Sam found him, but whether it still pained him Sam did not know. He certainly hoped not, and he assumed that Aragorn had treated the wound, so maybe it was comparatively nothing. Or maybe it was much worse than Frodo let on, but Sam knew better than to ask.

    As for the chain indentations, Sam wished more than anything that Frodo hadn’t acquired them. Hard enough to fight a battle of wills one can never hope to win, worse still when pure, unbridled evil shows itself as a physical weight, pulling you towards the earth, sapping you of your bodily strength while the master of evil rips your mind apart.

    Sam found himself nearly overwhelmingly tempted to claim the Ring for his own in the mere day that he bore it. For his friend to bear the brunt of that, to suffer much worse things than Sam could imagine, for months and months before finally giving in, half dead of starvation and thirst…how?

    Frodo flinched as Sam’s fingers briefly pressed into his skin, and Sam apologized, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray how truly terrible he felt.

 

After kissing a surgical scar in the center of the chest, Sam pondered whether to kiss the wound that demanded such a measure.

    A nightmarish weapon had brought his friend frightfully close to death. It pained him still, Sam knew, though Frodo understandably never brought attention to it. Yet how often had Sam caught him flinching when he thought no one was looking, or rubbing the wound with a grimace etched on his face?

    What if Sam’s touch aggravated it? What if a loving gesture inflicted undeserved pain?

    He moved aside the loose-fitting sleeve, waiting for a protestation. But Frodo nodded again.

    No longer was the scar the small white mark of Sam’s recollection. It looked less like a scar and more like a scab, the mark reddened and expanded, the flesh around it looking more bruised than healed.

    Tears again stung Sam’s eyes and nearly fell. The bloodshot, deathly pale figure that had once been his vivacious friend came to mind, then his friend returned to life, awake but already years older. The terror that left him unable to move when he first relived the memory. The deafening silence on the one-year anniversary. Seeing him lurch and cry out awakening from a new nightmare. The way his gaze shifted whenever he was asked about it. How he talked about it by not talking about it – the worst of all to Sam.

    Flooded with pity, Sam closed his eyes and kissed the wound. It was cold to the touch, almost painfully so, a stark contrast to the rest of Frodo’s body.

    Frodo’s tear-clouded eyes and quivering chin nearly stopped Sam’s heart. No pain lay in those eyes, but they contained such anguish that Sam wished for pain instead.

    Sam brushed away a stray curl, and Frodo’s tears rushed out, silently first but quickly evolving into crying. His upper body convulsed from the violence of his sobs. Sam held him tightly, whispering assurances while tears fell from his own eyes.

    Neither knew how much time passed, but the convulsions eventually ceased, and Frodo ran out of tears while Sam’s gradually subsided to nothing. And, for the first time in hours, Frodo found his voice.

    “Thank you, Sam.”


End file.
